The Man from the Train

Bill James's research began with an attempt to solve one famous unsolved crime, the Villisca axe murders, in which a family of six and two house guests were slaughtered in Villisca, Iowa on the night of June 9, 1912. James suspected a possible serial killer based on what seemed like the actions of a practiced criminal at Villisca, found some similar crimes, and brought on his daughter Rachel McCarthy James who found more.[1] McCarthy James was originally hired as a research assistant, but by her own estimate wrote roughly ten percent of the book and thus was credited as a co-author.[5]

Via research in newspaper archives the Jameses discovered scores of murders of entire families, committed from 1898 to 1912, occurring in Nova Scotia, Oregon, Kansas, Florida, Arkansas, and other locations, which they ascribe to Mueller.[1] Though many of these crimes earned significant publicity, they have mostly faded from attention apart from the Villisca murders. Mueller's name was apparently linked to only one crime in contemporary media. He was the subject of an unsuccessful yearlong manhunt as the sole suspect in the 1897 murder of a family in West Brookfield, Massachusetts who had employed him as a farmhand. According to Rachel McCarthy James, she and her father unearthed "probably 500 words of material about Mueller, specifically his physical appearance, where he’s from, his skills and his family."[6][7] Mueller was believed to most likely have worked as an itinerant lumberjack, as most of the murders occurred in or near logging areas and the killer preferred using an axe.[8]

The Jameses point out that in these times, local police usually assumed a local murderer with some connection to the victims. The concept of a nationwide traveling serial killer was never even considered in most cases. Locals arrested after police investigation were usually released on lack of evidence or after the suspects had strong alibis. But a few suspects were convicted and executed or lynched, in the case of several African-American suspects.[9]

According to the Jameses, a number of murders in the period which were assumed by local police to be one-off incidents were actually committed by a single person, probably Mueller, based on certain similarities among these crimes. These similarities include being within a few hundred feet of a railroad junction (thus the book's title); the slaughter of entire families in small towns with little or no police force; the families having a barn where the killer was believed to have hidden to observe the families; the families having no dog to warn of an intruder; the killer using the blunt edge of an axe as a murder weapon; the killer leaving the axe in plain sight; the killer covering victims with sheets or blankets prior to the murders (probably to prevent blood spatter); the killer moving or stacking bodies after the murders; the killer covering windows from inside the house with sheets or towels; and the absence of robbery.[8][9] A killer or killers known as the Axeman of New Orleans was active in 1918 and 1919, but the authors believe these crimes are unconnected to Mueller due to different characteristics at the crime scenes.

The killer's motive is believed to have been a sadistic sexual attraction to pre-pubescent girls. While adults were typically ambushed and murdered in bed while sleeping, girls showed defense wounds or other evidence of struggle, and media reports of the crimes often included veiled references to the killer having ejaculated at the crime scenes.[8] Bill James noted that nationwide from 1890 to 1912 there was an average of eight murdered families per year, most of which do not share the characteristics reported in media for the crimes attributed to Mueller. A statistician in his baseball work, James contends that given the rarity of murdered families it is virtually impossible for crimes to have such idiosyncratic features as listed, and yet to not be connected. A lack of such crimes anywhere in the nation for about a year in 1908 led the Jameses to speculate that the killer was apprehended and imprisoned for a minor crime.[9]

The Jameses describe themselves as feeling certain that Mueller committed 14 family murders totaling 59 victims, and less certain to varying degrees of his involvement in another 25 family murders totaling an additional 94 victims.[8]

The authors also suggest that Mueller may have been responsible for the 1922 Hinterkaifeck murders in Germany. The murders bear some similarities to the US crimes, including the slaughter of an entire family in their isolated home, use of the blunt edge of a farm tool as a weapon (a pick axe), and the apparent absence of robbery as a motive. The authors suspect that Mueller, described as a German immigrant in contemporary media, might have departed the US for his homeland after private investigators and journalists began to notice and publicize patterns in family murders across state lines following the brazen 1911 murder of two families in a single night in Colorado Springs, Colorado and a similar family murder weeks afterward a few hundred miles away in neighboring Kansas.[8]

In a review for The New York Journal of Books, Bill McClug described The Man from the Train as "an interesting and fascinating albeit rather unknown story, and it is commendable that the authors have chosen to bring it to light."[9] But he also criticized the writing style as overly casual and thought it unlikely that the Jameses case could be conclusively proved after a century.

Kirkus Reviews gave the book a positive review: "Told in workmanlike, journalistic prose with plenty of personal injections—'hear me out. Have I got a story to tell you'—the narrative becomes addictive, and it’s easy to get caught up in the elaborate search and the authors’ conclusions, which are plausible." [1]

• List of serial killers in the United States

• Q&A interview with Bill James on The Man from the Train, February 4, 2018, C-SPAN